Build your own open source alternative to Google Suite with Nextcloud

Emotional, Burning, Unlimited Tuned Laboratory

The open source cloud collaboration suite has made major gains in recent years. Take a look at what you’ve missed.

A few years ago, I installed Nextcloud for a local theatre and museum that was looking for an on-premises cloud solution. As an advocate for open source, I always seek out open source options first, and Nextcloud was the most-common open source cloud solution among my peers. I’ve also used it for some personal projects, but I hadn’t looked at it in a while.

I recently revisited Nextcloud and was amazed by all the changes I saw. The project has evolved into a complete solution that can replace big-name solutions like Google Drive and Microsoft 365. Nextcloud’s new feature set, especially Nextcloud Hub, is outstanding, offering collaborative documentation editing, file version control, integrated chat and video calling, and more.